Shields are good for defence, but having dual-wielding dorfs will (I think) increase the weapon skill much faster.
<!--quoteo(post=1581206:date=Nov 27 2006, 01:38 AM:name=lolfighter)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(lolfighter @ Nov 27 2006, 01:38 AM) [snapback]1581206[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--> Not just makeshift soldiers, dogs can make great soldiers. They're plentiful, they don't consume resources and they can remain "on duty" almost indefinitely. Great for assigning to a dorf in a strange mood if you cannot satisfy him, just in case he turns murderous.
And man, I almost wish I got sixteen immigrants after my first winter. I had beds prepared for up to ten, but I only got five. And two of them were trappers. -_- <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Dogs are also an excellent source for meat <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin-fix.gif" />
Seriously, let your dogs reproduce for a bit and then you'll never have any more meat problems.
<!--quoteo(post=1581112:date=Nov 26 2006, 08:51 PM:name=Mouse)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Mouse @ Nov 26 2006, 08:51 PM) [snapback]1581112[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--> I received 16 immigrants after my first winter -.- <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You can end up getting 30+ in one go if (un)lucky enough. Depends on how well you're doing as far as I know - also depends on how much you've traded with dwarven merchants or given them gifts I believe.
SidCorwid of the FreeJoin Date: 2003-01-28Member: 12903Members, Constellation
Arg. I can't make it past my first winter. XD Always run out of food, have nothing to trade, and start farming too late. Oh well, onto fort #14.. (I've got some really good builds and designs going).
Well, that's what you need to get up pretty fast - and also, it is HIGHLY recommended that you bring a lot of food with you. Don't spend all points on dwarf skills etc. It's just not worth it. If you start with one miner, max out mining, if you have two, just spend one point on each - they will grow skilled dead fast anyway. Woodchopping doesn't really need more than one point in my opinion - mason and carpentry on the other hand I usually like to max out at start since these skills I find take a rather long time to increase. Also always useful to have one craftsdwarf and one basic fisherdwarf, then one basic farmer.
You should dig immediately for the river or use the outside river for farming - with two miners this should go relatively quickly.
I tend to get about 20 a year, regradless of the fact that I make no effort to create crafts aside from obsidian swords for traps anymore.
Good skills to start high are any skills that make somthing. This means these objects will be produced faster, and before you have masses of workshops and unskilled dwarves to turn out mass-production, you'll want your tradedwarf to be working as fast as possible. Having a skilled bone carver is good if you plan on making a marksdwarf squad, as they need bone bolts to train. Giving people novice ambusher is also a good idea. This skill will give them a full set of leather armor for free, and an iron crossbow and a stack of bolts for free. On more dangerous maps giving EVERYONE ambusher is highly suggested so you can draft a millita in case you accidently attract the attention of undead warthogs before you seal your fortress. Giving people novice miner and novice engraver so they automatically start with those actions lit is a good idea. Raising it above that is not. Miner and engraver are the easiest skills to get legendary in. Don't exepct to get legendary through practice. It won't happen. Most of your legendary tradeskillers will come from strange moods.
I keep trying to play and keep getting discouraged. there's just soo much going on and I don't know what relates to what. for instance, I've got a kitchen and butcher workshops but the dwarves seem to throw dead animals in the rubbish pile instead of cooking them, even when I try to queue up meals and stuff. I don't know what's important to make out of rocks and wood - don't know what barrels and chests and such are for, don't know how to take an efficient inventory of what supplies are laying around, etc... one of my dwarves died and I have no clue how... it might have been a fox, but a fox killing an axe-wielding hunter dwarf is a little hard to swallow. I probably haven't played far enough into the game for some of this stuff to start making sense, but when my modest 7 dwarves are reduced to 6 and I don't know what went wrong, it starts getting annoying =p
Do what I did when I just couldn't figure it out: check the wiki.
As for the dead animals in the refuse pile, you need to make sure one of your dwarfs has Butchery highlighted in the labor menu. I'm fairly sure Butchers (that is, dwarfs with Butchery enabled, not just dwarfs with the skill) automatically go to butcher dead animals when their corpses are made available. It's important to remember, though, that the corpses need to be picked up from a refuse pile, so make sure you designate one.
<!--quoteo(post=1581346:date=Nov 27 2006, 02:06 PM:name=DiscoZombie)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(DiscoZombie @ Nov 27 2006, 02:06 PM) [snapback]1581346[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--> I keep trying to play and keep getting discouraged. there's just soo much going on and I don't know what relates to what. for instance, I've got a kitchen and butcher workshops but the dwarves seem to throw dead animals in the rubbish pile instead of cooking them, even when I try to queue up meals and stuff. I don't know what's important to make out of rocks and wood - don't know what barrels and chests and such are for, don't know how to take an efficient inventory of what supplies are laying around, etc... one of my dwarves died and I have no clue how... it might have been a fox, but a fox killing an axe-wielding hunter dwarf is a little hard to swallow. I probably haven't played far enough into the game for some of this stuff to start making sense, but when my modest 7 dwarves are reduced to 6 and I don't know what went wrong, it starts getting annoying =p <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
To butcher an animal, you have to go to the Animal menu (press z), and from there designate which animals you want to slaughter. Once you have animals designated, a butchery and an assigned butcher, the chosen animals will be slaughtered automatically.
<!--quoteo(post=1580877:date=Nov 26 2006, 07:48 AM:name=tankefugl)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(tankefugl @ Nov 26 2006, 07:48 AM) [snapback]1580877[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--> Wow, I spent last night playing this, started on my third fortress (getting the hang of how things are done), and it's incredible fun once you get over the interface. <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Exactly. Mouse support wouldn't be bad, though <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" /> .
This game is awesome. There are so many (most likely <b>too many</b>) little details in this game. For example, my hunter dorf got a slight braindamage and a mangled leg. He couldn't get up from his bed anymore, so the other dorves gave him food and water. It was really touching <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":(" border="0" alt="sad-fix.gif" />
A question for the 'advanced' DF players: Do you expand your fort deep into the mountain? I've already found the chasm, but my fort (buildings, workshops and such) has barely reached the half way to the river.
ah, there's an 'animal' menu when you press Z? no wonder I couldn't get my dudes to do any butchering. the butcher was just sitting in the butcher's shop without doing anything, even though I tried to queue up tasks there <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":(" border="0" alt="sad-fix.gif" /> I'll give it another try shortly. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />
The way cooking works is that the cook takes a number of ingrdients (which you have labeled as cook under kitchen) and mixes them together, producing a number of food pieces equal to the number of ingrdients you put it. A simple meal uses two items and produces two biscuits. A fine meal uses three items and produces three bowls of soup. A magnificent meal uses four items and produces four roasts. So why cook?
1. Cooking allows you to process things you typically could not eat before - this includes seeds, fat, and syrup.
2. The quality of a food you farm is allways normal. However, cooked food can have a quality level and a value depending on what it was made from, and a high quality food keeps your dwarves happy longer then an unprocessed food item. A masterwork *food* will keep your dwarf full twice as long as a raw food. Eating a mastwork food will not make the cook tantrum (for apparent reasons). Note that while I'm sure you would love to, it's impossible to make artifact food, and equally impossible to end up with a legendary cook from a strange mood.
Well, processing food also means that the more you process it (all the way from milling to cooking), the more total output in amount of food in addition to the leftover seeds (if any graintypes are used) you will get.
And of course, the bigger variety of foodstuff will keep your dwarves happier.
Scythe, make a tomb chamber and create coffins @ the Mason Workshop which you place in the tomb. If someone loses a child or spouce then they won't get such a huge happiness penalty if the dead are encased in a tomb. You also won't have to deal with Miasma that way.
Mind, you don't have to declare the whole room as a tomb, just select each tomb and set burial to (Y).
Only drawback is that eventually you might end up with many, pretty big tomb chambers, but I find that kinda cool.
Then on your next fortress, you might wanna consider seriously designing it with traps and defences in mind. Later on you have to deal with goblin sieges, and in rare cases, you might get attacked by super-creatures like Dragons and whatnot else, which will cause extreme havoc if they penetrate your fortress.
That's when you'll want to have strategically placed catapults and ballista's <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />
Scythe, when you get more dorfs your fort is going to slow to a crawl because your hallways are so narrow, and you better get some defenses at your front door pronto in case goblins start showing up.
When you find the irons the first things you should build are two anvils, and the next four things you build should be 2 magma smelters and 2 magma forges.
Yeah, the single-width corridors are a problem. I could swear I made a post about that yesterday, but it's gone now. Anyways, those corridors force your dwarves to lie down so they can crawl under other dwarves or the other dwarves can clamber over them if they try to pass each other in a corridor. Not an ideal state in the long run.
You still have your wagon. It's useless and yields three wood logs if dismantled.
Dig out some rooms for your workshops and place them indoors (if you dig out 3x3 rooms, make sure the door isn't blocked by an impassable square). It makes your fort much more defensible.
SidCorwid of the FreeJoin Date: 2003-01-28Member: 12903Members, Constellation
<img src="http://pgroves.googlepages.com/Fort14.png" border="0" alt="IPB Image" /> Fort #14... heading into Winter #3.
I have too much stuff on the go, my dorfs are working so slowly. D: My hunters keep dying, even with crossbows and armour. (Atleast that gives me stuff to trade with!) 8D
Still need to make traps here and there...don't worry, dwarves can't set off their own traps so build them wherever you want - I'd suggest several in the entrance hallway for starters - preferably weapon-based traps.
Also, make stone crafts for trading purposes.
And finally, also make bins (suppose you should start off with wooden ones, until you can make metal bins) - one bin can hold 10 items in it, which means you'll save a lot of storage space. Bins can hold pretty much any smaller items that doesn't go into barrels.
I downloaded a while back, haven't had a chance to play at all. From my perspective, most of the screen is less than decipherable... There is something in the game that will explain the map right?
The map will be very confusing at first, but you'll learn it pretty fast. It's just a matter of time before you get used to associating everything and what it means and once you do, you'll really enjoy the game.
that is assuming I find the time to play the game. As it is, I'll be presenting on a project tomorrow, and then I'll be teaching the kids how to program until 10pm... then I'll probably have a beer. Not sure how many days it'll be before I have time.
tankefuglOne Script To Rule Them All...Trondheim, NorwayJoin Date: 2002-11-14Member: 8641Members, Retired Developer, NS1 Playtester, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
I have to re-state it; this game is amazing. Just when I thought EA and MMORPGS would conquer the world ...
The last dungeon was abandoned after four years, as I suddenly got interrupted by .. unicorns?! They totally annihilated my poor defenders. I'm gonna go for a more trap-oriented defense this time, and I also got a superb plan for an underground forest/farm system.
I think I've gotten lazier in my old age... I'm having trouble being bothered with getting into big complicated games like this and EVE Online even though I trust everyone who says they rock...
This game is consuming my soul. I'm having trouble finding time to play NS between this and sleep. I really like some of the layouts that people have made; they are a lot more organized than my own fortress, especially now that I just had to make accomodations for another 25 migrants <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/nerd-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="::nerdy::" border="0" alt="nerd-fix.gif" />
Also: hunting is very buggy. Try to avoid using it.
SidCorwid of the FreeJoin Date: 2003-01-28Member: 12903Members, Constellation
<!--quoteo(post=1582290:date=Nov 30 2006, 02:43 AM:name=Scythe)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Scythe @ Nov 30 2006, 02:43 AM) [snapback]1582290[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--> Sid, your nobles will likely complain about noise coming from those forges that are near their rooms. Damn picky bastages.
--Scythe-- <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Ack true! x.x
And I have an over population of dorfs. THEY KEEP COMING! I can't expand quick enough.
Comments
<!--quoteo(post=1581206:date=Nov 27 2006, 01:38 AM:name=lolfighter)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(lolfighter @ Nov 27 2006, 01:38 AM) [snapback]1581206[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
Not just makeshift soldiers, dogs can make great soldiers. They're plentiful, they don't consume resources and they can remain "on duty" almost indefinitely. Great for assigning to a dorf in a strange mood if you cannot satisfy him, just in case he turns murderous.
And man, I almost wish I got sixteen immigrants after my first winter. I had beds prepared for up to ten, but I only got five. And two of them were trappers. -_-
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Dogs are also an excellent source for meat <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin-fix.gif" />
Seriously, let your dogs reproduce for a bit and then you'll never have any more meat problems.
<!--quoteo(post=1581112:date=Nov 26 2006, 08:51 PM:name=Mouse)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Mouse @ Nov 26 2006, 08:51 PM) [snapback]1581112[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
I received 16 immigrants after my first winter -.-
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You can end up getting 30+ in one go if (un)lucky enough. Depends on how well you're doing as far as I know - also depends on how much you've traded with dwarven merchants or given them gifts I believe.
You should dig immediately for the river or use the outside river for farming - with two miners this should go relatively quickly.
Good skills to start high are any skills that make somthing. This means these objects will be produced faster, and before you have masses of workshops and unskilled dwarves to turn out mass-production, you'll want your tradedwarf to be working as fast as possible. Having a skilled bone carver is good if you plan on making a marksdwarf squad, as they need bone bolts to train. Giving people novice ambusher is also a good idea. This skill will give them a full set of leather armor for free, and an iron crossbow and a stack of bolts for free. On more dangerous maps giving EVERYONE ambusher is highly suggested so you can draft a millita in case you accidently attract the attention of undead warthogs before you seal your fortress. Giving people novice miner and novice engraver so they automatically start with those actions lit is a good idea. Raising it above that is not. Miner and engraver are the easiest skills to get legendary in. Don't exepct to get legendary through practice. It won't happen. Most of your legendary tradeskillers will come from strange moods.
As for the dead animals in the refuse pile, you need to make sure one of your dwarfs has Butchery highlighted in the labor menu. I'm fairly sure Butchers (that is, dwarfs with Butchery enabled, not just dwarfs with the skill) automatically go to butcher dead animals when their corpses are made available. It's important to remember, though, that the corpses need to be picked up from a refuse pile, so make sure you designate one.
I keep trying to play and keep getting discouraged. there's just soo much going on and I don't know what relates to what. for instance, I've got a kitchen and butcher workshops but the dwarves seem to throw dead animals in the rubbish pile instead of cooking them, even when I try to queue up meals and stuff. I don't know what's important to make out of rocks and wood - don't know what barrels and chests and such are for, don't know how to take an efficient inventory of what supplies are laying around, etc... one of my dwarves died and I have no clue how... it might have been a fox, but a fox killing an axe-wielding hunter dwarf is a little hard to swallow. I probably haven't played far enough into the game for some of this stuff to start making sense, but when my modest 7 dwarves are reduced to 6 and I don't know what went wrong, it starts getting annoying =p
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
To butcher an animal, you have to go to the Animal menu (press z), and from there designate which animals you want to slaughter. Once you have animals designated, a butchery and an assigned butcher, the chosen animals will be slaughtered automatically.
Wow, I spent last night playing this, started on my third fortress (getting the hang of how things are done), and it's incredible fun once you get over the interface.
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Exactly. Mouse support wouldn't be bad, though <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" /> .
This game is awesome. There are so many (most likely <b>too many</b>) little details in this game. For example, my hunter dorf got a slight braindamage and a mangled leg. He couldn't get up from his bed anymore, so the other dorves gave him food and water. It was really touching <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":(" border="0" alt="sad-fix.gif" />
A question for the 'advanced' DF players: Do you expand your fort deep into the mountain? I've already found the chasm, but my fort (buildings, workshops and such) has barely reached the half way to the river.
And also, do you use fertilizer for your farms?
1. Cooking allows you to process things you typically could not eat before - this includes seeds, fat, and syrup.
2. The quality of a food you farm is allways normal. However, cooked food can have a quality level and a value depending on what it was made from, and a high quality food keeps your dwarves happy longer then an unprocessed food item. A masterwork *food* will keep your dwarf full twice as long as a raw food. Eating a mastwork food will not make the cook tantrum (for apparent reasons). Note that while I'm sure you would love to, it's impossible to make artifact food, and equally impossible to end up with a legendary cook from a strange mood.
And of course, the bigger variety of foodstuff will keep your dwarves happier.
<img src="http://xs409.xs.to/xs409/06483/local_map-1-1056-13406.png" border="0" alt="IPB Image" />
--Scythe--
Mind, you don't have to declare the whole room as a tomb, just select each tomb and set burial to (Y).
Only drawback is that eventually you might end up with many, pretty big tomb chambers, but I find that kinda cool.
Then on your next fortress, you might wanna consider seriously designing it with traps and defences in mind. Later on you have to deal with goblin sieges, and in rare cases, you might get attacked by super-creatures like Dragons and whatnot else, which will cause extreme havoc if they penetrate your fortress.
That's when you'll want to have strategically placed catapults and ballista's <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />
When you find the irons the first things you should build are two anvils, and the next four things you build should be 2 magma smelters and 2 magma forges.
You still have your wagon. It's useless and yields three wood logs if dismantled.
Dig out some rooms for your workshops and place them indoors (if you dig out 3x3 rooms, make sure the door isn't blocked by an impassable square). It makes your fort much more defensible.
I have too much stuff on the go, my dorfs are working so slowly. D: My hunters keep dying, even with crossbows and armour. (Atleast that gives me stuff to trade with!) 8D
Also, make stone crafts for trading purposes.
And finally, also make bins (suppose you should start off with wooden ones, until you can make metal bins) - one bin can hold 10 items in it, which means you'll save a lot of storage space. Bins can hold pretty much any smaller items that doesn't go into barrels.
--Scythe--
--Scythe--
The last dungeon was abandoned after four years, as I suddenly got interrupted by .. unicorns?! They totally annihilated my poor defenders. I'm gonna go for a more trap-oriented defense this time, and I also got a superb plan for an underground forest/farm system.
(I love this Rogue-like Settlers!)
I bet that if I was to post this on some MMORPG forum or something like that, I'd get a bunch of "OMG, this game suxoooorz nooob azz!" crap.
Has happened to me with other games that didn't have "graphics" but had excellent gameplay.
I really like some of the layouts that people have made; they are a lot more organized than my own fortress, especially now that I just had to make accomodations for another 25 migrants <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/nerd-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="::nerdy::" border="0" alt="nerd-fix.gif" />
Also: hunting is very buggy. Try to avoid using it.
Sid, your nobles will likely complain about noise coming from those forges that are near their rooms. Damn picky bastages.
--Scythe--
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Ack true! x.x
And I have an over population of dorfs. THEY KEEP COMING! I can't expand quick enough.